Should the wisdom of crowds replace standard consumer research?

I usually have a pile of books on my night table waiting for me to finally get around to reading them.  But the ones that, by intention or accident, end up at the bottom of the pile can sit there for weeks or months before I finally get around to cracking them open.
In many cases [...]

Darfur is Dying — can a video game help resolve a humanitarian crisis?

Darfur is Dying is a free online video game created to build awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and motivate people to take action in addressing it.  I discovered the game through an episode of 3 Minute Ad Age which featured segments of a keynote presentation made by Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The [...]

Spoofs of GM’s new “Reinvention” commercial

I merely critiqued the commercial. Others have gone further.

A 30-second message from our sponser — how cool is that?

In this amusing clip Malcom Gladwell fantasizes about a world in which digital media always existed and newspapers were only invented a few years ago.  He imagines that digital natives would find it totally cool — information on paper, no need to lug your laptop to the breakfast table every morning.  I’ve had a similar [...]

Jeff Jarvis thinks advertising is failure. What do you think?

This talk by Jeff Jarvis on the future of marketing and advertising was made at the recent Brite Conference at Columbia Business School.  It’s well worth the 21 minute investment to watch it.

Jarvis’s central thought is that advertising is failure.  It’s merely an inadequate replacement for what should be an ongoing exchange between the people [...]

GM’s reinvention commercial on YouTube is as un-inventive as it gets

Fresh from filing for Chapter 11, GM has launched a video on YouTube about its vision for the future.

The commercial is a disaster. I call it a commercial because that’s exactly what is. The same old marketing cliches, hackneyed images, the stilted language of advertising (”This is not about going out of business, this is [...]

Slay big old Goliath with social media

The May 11th, 2009, issue of The New Yorker features an article by Malcolm Gladwell entitled “How David Beats Goliath.  When underdogs break the rules.”  Gladwell reviews principles by which the weaker of two competitors, who under normal circumstances would surely suffer defeat, can shift the odds to come out the winner.
One of the key [...]